Archive for August, 2013

Though FactionWar was heavily focused on in last year’s Inferno update, since then there has been little attention given to the militias.

Of course I don’t blame CCP, they have a lot of different things to juggle and really they can only do so much, I get that.

But at the same time, I can’t help but to wish they could give another glance to FW and do a little tweeking here and there. Or, you know, revamp the whole damn thing.

I think the fundamental problem with FW as a whole is that many undeservingly benefit from the efforts of a few.

Currently, FW operates on a tiered system. Aka, if a militia has X amount of systems that are upgraded with donated LP, then the Tier bar slides upwards. There are five tiers and the benefits play out like this:

A novice sized ‘plex’ in FW takes ten minutes to complete if there is no opposition. If your militia is in tier one, you will gain 5k LP for your effort. You will get 10k LP in tier two. Tier three gets 17.5k LP, tier four gets 25k LP, and in tier five you’ll gain 32,500k LP.

In theory that sounds great. Ten minutes of your play time for 32, 500k LP? If you’re just looking to join FW without any real preference to any specific militia, I think one of the deciding factors would be how much ISK you could make. If one militia is in tier one and the other is in tier four, I think I’d choose the money making militia.

And that factor alone keeps a militia in a certain tier for a long while, because you have so many new people joining up to reap those benefits. They did nothing to help the militia to get to that tier, but they will soak up all the increased LP from other people’s work.

People who were already in militia had to plex those systems up and spend their own LP to upgrade the systems. Upgrading is done at the IHUB of each system. Systems are ranked from level one to level five. If you donate at the IHUB, then you can upgrade the system which gives small benefits for the system, like more industrial slots and cheaper clones. (to be honest I don’t think anyone at all even cares about those benefits) It also adds to the over all point system for tiers. So basically, a few people who actually care about their militia will donate their own LP to do this upgrading, but everyone else mooches off their efforts.

This increased LP system works for FW missions too. So someone who hasn’t done anything at all for their militia, never pvped, never plexed a day in their life, they get to reap the rewards of higher tiers. You get that 150% LP payout at tier four for missions…and you did nothing at all to help your militia achieve tier four, and you do nothing to help them maintain it.

All these farmers and leechers of increased LP skews the market prices.

It’s a sad state of affairs to think that I, a die hard Amarrian, doesn’t really give two figs about what tier we are in…because I can reap the benefits of the Minmatar efforts on a two day old alt. I can make just as much ISK whoring the opposing side.

But really it shouldn’t be this way.

I would love to see the system drastically changed to something along these lines:

Ditch the tiered system for an entire militia. There, I said it. (someone needed to)

Instead, give personal tiers to individual militia pilots. Viola, a system that is fair.

In militia, we have ‘victory points’ that are awarded for each plex you run. Victory points have never had a meaning, no one really knows what they are for. So why not let that be the measure of what tier a pilot can be in for the week.

X amount of victory points for a pilot and that pilot alone gets to move into tier two or tier three etc. The more work you do for a militia, the more reward you get. Your work is your reward and you don’t have to share it with others.

I think personal tiers instead of militia tiers would solve a lot of problems. The people who contribute the most would earn the most. If it we had personal tiers, then there’d be no real ISK motivation to join one particular faction over the other. The market would benefit as well because there wouldn’t be an overabundance of ships like it is now when a militia is at a certain tier.

Missions should be at a flat out rate as before. It is absurd that the LP scales with the tier’ed system currently. Missions are still unbalanced in FW and they add nothing to the pvp experience- chasing after cloaked bombers is dull, boring, and fruitless.

Also, I think the whole, plexing in someone else’s war-zone and getting LP for it should be changed too. The whole ‘allies’ thing of FW is weird. Currently Caldari and Amarr show up as ‘purple’ to one another (the default in-your-militia color) Yet, we are allowed to shoot one another and not take any standings from our own militia. It’s like we are fake allies. As an Amarrian, if I shoot at another Amarrian I lose standings and if I do it enough, I will be kicked from militia. But I can shoot Caldari all day long and suffer no consequence. I can even go over to Caldari space and run their plexes, etc. But on the overview we show as ‘blue’ to one another. It’s all fine and dandy for someone who has been in militia for a while and know that blue doesn’t mean blue, but some new person to militia gets easily tricked by it. I see it happen all the time.

So yeah, those are just a couple of changes I’d make to FW to make it better. I’m interested to know what you think, do let me know!

For those of you keeping score, Sahtogas fell the other day and the Amarr currently own just a handful of systems. We have lost ground all across the war-zone and the Minmatar alliance, Biohazard, is pushing hard to claim all the things.

Apparently they want that medal real bad.

And for once, I just can’t muster enough care to give a damn. It’s not that I don’t love militia or Amarr. It’s not that I don’t still enjoy EVE or my alliance.

It’s just that…I can’t bear the thought of forcing my guys to up and move to Gultratren (the ass-end of our war-zone) to set up a temporary base to start mind-numbing plexing fleets to claim the North again.

What’s the point, really. The last time the Minmatar pushed this hard, they took all the systems except one, which gave us enough time to go North and start a defensive push.

Sounds exciting, but in all honesty, it wasn’t. It was hour upon hour upon HOURS of circling buttons. We took our first two Northern systems before anyone realized what we were up to. We had no fights, just….days upon playing ‘ring around the beacon’.

Yes, we succeeded in what we were trying to do. We inspired Fweddit and others to push back and we got to Tier 4.

But at what cost? After exhausting my corp members and my lovely FC, Almity, we lost several members. People were just sick of it. Many people took breaks from the game and others just left FW all together. Corp activity dropped drastically and yes, I can blame some of it on ‘summertime’ but I think for the most part, it was pure exhaustion and being sick of FW. The game simply wasn’t fun.

The toll of pushing for the ‘riches’ of Tier 4 wasn’t worth the price we had to pay.

So now, here we are again with the Minmatar beating down the doors and everyone is asking ‘what are we going to do?’

And here is my answer. Nothing. We are going to do absolutely nothing about it. The measurement of success cannot be defined by what Tier a militia is in, aka who has the most LP farmers. If ‘Winmatar’ wants to plex, more power to you guys, have fun with that.

I have informed my guys that if they want to plex, that is great and they can, but leadership is not going to step in and run mind-numbing plexing fleets to ‘save’ anything, because honestly, there’s not a lot of point in it. Nothing belongs to anyone forever in FW because it is the nature of the mechanics. I’ve seen several systems bounce back and forth in occupancy like a pingpong ball.

So why should I once again ask my corp to spend ten plus hours plexing every night just so we can temporarily take a system. Its pointless.

Instead, we are going to focus on small gang pvp, you know, the fun stuff of militia. We live in a system just outside of FW for a reason. Almity is back, let the roaming fleets begin baby! I want my corp to enjoy their time on EVE, I want them to log on and go shoot something in the face. I want them to relax, not to be stressed the entire day long wondering if someone is undoing all their ‘hard work’ of plexing. Nope. Not anymore. If someone wants to sit on the Egghelende undock and have fun shooting anything that moves while chatting with EPA, why shouldn’t they be able to do that? Why should I have to force people fifteen jumps away to orbit beacons to ‘save’ Amarr, or beg Almity to run plexing fleets sixteen and seventeen hours a weekend. Nope, not going to happen anymore.

Oh, and if my guys ask how they can fund their pvp? Well…they can always make a Minmatar stabbed & cloaky alt, yeah? 🙂

One of my corpmates, a marine in real life, I think, has just returned to EVE after being away for a few months doing important military things.

After being on half an hour or so, he said something like “I’m already bored”.

That got me musing on how differently people can play the game, and how each person’s game time is vastly unique, even if they are in the same corporation.

I’m never bored on EVE, there is always something to be done. A typical night for me involves:

1. Running logistics. I do the majority of logistics for my alliance, so if I’m on my main account odds are I have the alt account open too, trucking the space lanes hauling stuff around. For some bizarre reason I actually enjoy this. It’s a chore but also a challenge figuring out what ship to take: the jump freighter, regular freighter, or small industrial ship. Who is going to cyno me home, who can web me, etc. I like for my guys to get what they need.

2. Recruitment. I do the majority of this for my corp as well, though I’m training up an officer to help out. But it is time involving, making sure this app is posted, that app has a response. Has the API been checked. And so on, and so on.

4. Convos! I’m writing this at work, but if I were at home I’d log on and take a screen shot of my EVE. Half my screen is filled chatboxes. When I fly, I rarely see space at all, just a sliver of stars in between the various boxes. I have the typical set of channels: Alliance, Corp, Militia, and about 10 other channels related to the war. Other channels include several personal channels with people and some rp channels. Always someone to talk to and something to read. Oh, and the occasional convo from the dirty Minmatar flirting with me. (you know who you are Sneaky Noob!)

5. Twittering. I blame my space frienemy, Susan Black, got me started on my twitter addiction. It’s fun to know what the Minmatar are up to four jumps away. Sure, I could undock and go see, but ::effort::

6. Reading blogs. So if you are checking Twitter, the #tweetfleet is constantly pimping out their blogs to read. Thank the EVE gods for ingame browsers!

7. Roleplay! My space-name is Shalee Lianne and I am a roleplayer. 90% of you think that rp is geeky or dumb, and that’s okay, I still love it very much! It makes the game so much more interesting for me.

8. Gambling. SomerBlink is like a drug. One more hit! One more and I’m quitting (I never do). Also I have fun on the slot machines on this website. And! EOH Poker is fun too.

From: Gullath Nabali
Sent: 2013.08.09 19:20
To: Shalee Lianne
Neherus claims we should respond, that we accept the rules. So ok, I accept them, and would like to join the Corp with my free will. (hoping I do not need to sign in blood, I really do not like needles).

We don’t use needles. You can cut your hand with a knife and press it against the monitor while repeating these words : I pledge my allegiance to the Amarr Militia and to Shalee Lianne, I blood swear to honor the values of the corporation and will give my all to love, protect, and glorify both Shalee Lianne and the Amarr Militia. I will show no fear and will destroy my enemies for the glory of Amarr! This I vow.

Actually it surprised me. All the time I knew her I thought she was Amarr. She even killed other Minmatar on sight when we were shopping or just outside our station. Looks like they are able to create some mind conditioning, pushing all Minmatar life back and pretend to be one of us.

BTW, I am really interested how can a noob of my level be helpful to a corp, but looking forward to find out 🙂

A double agent Minmatar?! Oh my, she must have been a spy! As you will learn, spies are everywhere in Militia. No doubt she was implanted into your life to distract you from your one true destiny! The Minmatar will obviously stop at nothing to sabotage the Amarr.

As for being a noob, anyone can contribute to the corp and pvp, even a new player. We do a thing in Militia called ‘plexing’ which means you will go out into the warzone (we will have a map on the forums that will show you which systems are within the warzone) and run your onboard scanner to find sites called things like ‘amarr compound’. These sites need to be ‘ran’ which mean you stay within the range of the timer to count it down. Hopefully the Minmatar will come and try to stop you so that you can get a fight! But if they don’t you still do good by finishing the plex. You will be rewarded a bit of LP which you can use to buy things at the LP store. There will be a plexing guide on our forums to explain it all.

Also, newer players can focus on things like learning to tackle, which means warp disrupting/scrambling the enemy while others kill it.

The main thing is to have fun with your friends. PVP can be exhilarating when you first start out, pilots often get ‘the shakes’- you’ll know what that means when it happens. Your heart will race and you’ll get that butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling. Be prepared to die, and die often. Never fly what you can’t afford to lose, or what you can’t fit properly. It’s worth staying in frigates until you can fit a destroyer the right way, etc etc.

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Sovereignty Wars

Character: Elisen

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